This invention relates to a method and apparatus that correlates geographical location information of user equipment with data relating to a network map to assist in the selection of a target cell during handover and redirection procedures. While the invention is particularly directed to the art of wireless telecommunications, and will be thus described with specific reference thereto, it will be appreciated that the invention may have usefulness in other fields and applications.
By way of background, in the field of wireless telecommunications, such as cellular telephony, a system typically includes a plurality of base stations distributed within an area to be serviced by the system. Various users within the area, fixed or mobile, may then access the system and, thus, other interconnected telecommunications systems, via one or more of the base stations. Typically a user maintains communications with the system as the user passes through an area by communicating with one and then another base station, as the user moves. The user may communicate with the closest base station, the base station with the strongest signal, the base station with a capacity sufficient to accept communications, etc.
Quality of Experience (QoE) for the users in wireless networks is important to network operators because it is one of the elements that attracts, and helps keep, subscribers and also builds customer loyalty. To keep the Quality of Experience at its highest level, wireless network operators pay specific attention to optimizing the network resource usage, particularly the radio spectrum usage, which is a scarce and expensive resource.
To support the wide penetration of smartphones and the high throughput demands from their end users, many wireless network operators have deployed the Long Term Evolution (LTE) standard in addition to their existing Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (W-CDMA or WCDMA) and Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) networks. In many parts of their networks, more than one carrier frequency has been deployed for W-CDMA and LTE networks to support high throughput, optimum Quality of Experience, and the always-on demands from an extensive number of subscribers. In other words, both capacity and Quality of Experience demands from subscribers forced the wireless network operators to deploy a number of W-CDMA and LTE carrier frequencies to meet these demands while utilizing their full radio spectrum.
In such an environment, the challenge for the wireless network operators is to fully utilize the radio spectrum and network resources by balancing the load among different technologies and/or different carrier frequencies within each technology while maintaining the Quality of Experience for the end users, as defined, for example, by various network Key Performance Indicators (KPI).
Thus, one issue is how to select the best cell and technology to make use of all available resources efficiently while also providing the subscribers an optimal Quality of Experience. Of course, this must be accomplished in a complex network deployment scenario where many carrier frequencies among different technologies have been deployed. As an example, a wireless operator may deploy in their network eight carrier frequencies among different technologies, e.g., two LTE, five W-CDMA and one GSM carrier frequencies. Each of the unique technology and carrier frequency pairs is defined as a layer. In this example, one can say that the network has eight layers.
Accordingly, there is a need for a method of selecting the most suitable cell in a complex network deployment, for example, when as much as eight carrier frequencies have been deployed between all relevant technologies. Selection of the most suitable cell requires relevant data available in a more granular form than on a per cell basis, especially the data that changes depending on the location of the user in the cell, such as radio conditions.